


Stay Awhile

by DreamsOfSleep



Category: New Girl
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, F/M, the darkest timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-11 23:32:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7075240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsOfSleep/pseuds/DreamsOfSleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last thing he remembers is that he was supposed to take her dancing...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay Awhile

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by She & Him's music video ["Stay Awhile"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni75mYuwvlg)

He was supposed to take her dancing on their wedding anniversary. That’s the last thing he remembers. 

\---

He was working late at the bar. It was past last call and he was the only person left inside. He was just about to lock up and go home when two masked gunmen rushed in. He gave them the money from the register but they still shot him anyway. He looked down at his chest where the red liquid was spreading out on his shirt and it didn’t feel quite real. It didn’t hurt exactly; it just felt cold. Then he was watching his body on the ground floating from somewhere nearby. He looked down and he didn’t have a body anymore but he felt solid, like he still existed. 

\---

It took awhile for the police to show up. It was pretty late at night and no one would go into the bar until mid-morning. Jess wouldn’t notice anything odd until tomorrow morning either because sometimes he slept at the bar if he worked late and was too tired to drive home. He sat in the bar’s back office and waited.

\---

He heard the police say it was random. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Schmidt and Winston and Cece were there and they were all crying. They made Jess wait outside. When she saw the police take his body out in a body bag she collapsed to the ground sobbing. He wished she had stayed home and just heard about the news afterwards in some black and white text on a police report instead of having to see what those gunmen did to him in person. So she wouldn’t have to close her eyes and remember him that way. 

\---

He sat in Schmidt’s car with his friends as they drove home to the loft. It was weird thinking he could see them but they couldn’t see him or even know he was there. 

\---

He sat in his spot on the couch in the loft and watched his friends plan his funeral. The day of the funeral, they all said nice things about him and his family flew in from Chicago. Everyone kept saying how he died too young but he thinks he lived a pretty good life if all these people cared enough to cry over him and miss him. Jess was there staring blankly. He tried to hold her hand but she kept saying how she felt cold. He wished that she knew that it hadn’t hurt and that he was still there. 

\---

He knew she was sad that he was gone. When she was sleeping, he tried to talk to her through her dreams. He didn’t know if she could hear him. Sometimes when he was in the loft and trying to get her attention, he could swear she would turn and look at him but it was probably his imagination.

\---

On the day of their wedding anniversary, he was sitting on the couch in the loft when it struck midnight. He looked down at where his hands used to be and they were actually there. It was late at night and everyone in the loft was sleeping except for Jess. She was up late looking through their wedding album in bed and crying. He opened the door to her bedroom. She turned in the direction of her open door and froze when she saw him. _She could see him._

“Jess,” he breathed out. She got up from the bed and slowly walked over to him. She reached a shaking hand out to his cheek. She could feel him; he was real. Tears started falling from her eyes. He wiped them away with his thumb. “I promised I would take you dancing,” he whispered to her. He held his hand out to her and she took it. He put his other hand on the small of her back and held her close. They did a slow waltz around her room. He pressed his mouth gently to hers, once. “I love you,” he said right before he faded away. 

\--

He went to a happy place where it was always sunny and he got to see his dad and all his other relatives that had passed away and his dead pets, but every year on their anniversary he returned to the loft because he remembered he was supposed to take her dancing and she was there waiting for him.


End file.
